Education

The quality and variety of Wirral’s schools and further education is one of many reasons why people choose to move into this area.

Wirral is one of few UK education authorities which has retained grammar schools, existing alongside many successful specialist colleges, church schools, special schools and independent schools.

All of Wirral’s secondary schools have now been granted specialist status – with specialisms including engineering, business, media, arts and sports – and one is now a fully extended school offering provision for the whole community all through the year. Millions of pounds of investment has been injected into new school buildings and facilities over the past few years and this is set to continue.

Wirral’s school pupils are high performing at all levels of education. GCSE results are consistently higher than the Northwest and national average, while Wirral’s primary pupils consistently achieve higher test scores than the national average and A-Level students regularly outperform the rest of the country.

In 2008 there will also be a network of 20 children’s centres across the borough offering childcare and a range of other services for families and their children.

There is easy access to Merseyside’s four universities: The University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool Hope University, Chester University and Edge Hill University, with its main campus at Ormskirk.  In addition, Chester University is also within 30 minutes drive and Wirral has its own further education colleges –Wirral Metropolitan College and Birkenhead Sixth Form College – which offer higher education courses.